Thursday, April 16, 2009

shapes of things

It is the familiar that usually eludes us in life. What is before our nose is what we see last.

William Barrett (1918-1992) philosopher

All things change, nothing is extinguished. There is nothing in the whole world which is permanent. Everything flows onward; all things are brought into being with a changing nature; the ages themselves glide by in constant movement.

Ovid (43 BC -17 AD)Ancient Roman classical poet

We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.

I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.

E.B. White (1899-1985) writer

It could be that our faithlessness is a cowering cowardice born of our very smallness, a massive failure of imagination. Certainly nature seems to exult in abounding radicality, extremism, anarchy. If we were to judge nature by common sense or likelihood, we wouldn't believe the world existed.

Annie Dillard (b.1945) writer, best known for her narrative nonfiction

You must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of your grandfathers. So that they will respect the land, tell your children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin. Teach your children what we have taught our children, that the earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves.

Native American Wisdom

I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.

John Muir (1838-1914) engineer, naturalist, writer

I think the environment should be put in the category of our national security. Defense of our resources is just as important as defense abroad. Otherwise what is there to defend?

foucault pendulum, named after the 19th century french physicist léon foucault, who created the pendulum to visually demonstrate the earth's rotation on it's axis. cleveland museum of natural history, january 2009

the yardbirds shapes of things (1966) on guitar is jeff beck; who, incidentally, was inducted into the rock hall just a couple weeks ago. in 2005 q magazine included shapes of things in their list of 100 greatest guitar tracks.

for me the most powerful and fitting verse of the song for theme thursday is:

Now the trees are almost green.But will they still be seen?When time and tide have been.Fall into your passing hands.Please don't destroy these lands.Don't make them desert sands.

36 comments:

So much here. I'll have to come back for a quiet walk-through. Certainly agree with Barbara Kingsolver, though. Things would be so much simpler if we just acknowledged that and were grateful for the chance to give voice to the experiences, instead of pretending to be different from the rest of creation and shutting ourselves off from it.

I have emailed your post to myself. With your permission, I would like to email to all my friends as well as my Green Team cohorts to honor Earth Day. The quotes are perfect. I agree with them all and the photos fit. Love it that you ended with Redford's quote. I love him. love him love him!!!

Aww you said in pictures and quotes what I found difficult to say in words. I love the Native American quote. Our indigenous population do not have a word in their language for 'own'. They managed to live here and not impact the environment for over 8,000 years, then we invaded and it all went to Hell! Great pic post.

nice to read all the wonderful comments, I'm so happy that no one seems tired of my typical take on theme thursday! I have a lot of fun thinking of snaps I have that can fit a theme and then of course the fun part is coming up with appropriate quotes...I expect one day there will be theme that will totally stump me!

I'm on the road right now and will be on a bit of a blog break. hopefully I won't be fall too far behind in reading other blogs (I have computer access, thank goodness - at least for now), I still have a slew of reading to do to catch up on theme thursday posts - thank goodness for the TT blog! makes it easy to navigate.

megan - re your comment, you are too funny! namaste!

california girl - permission granted, but certainly no permission is needed. I am very honored that you wish to share this post....

The greatest danger of religion is its doctrine of the primacy of man in nature. Were we to acknowledge that we are just animals with a more well developed consciousness, the planet would be better off and so would we.

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unless noted otherwise, all photos on the mouse are taken by me, kim yanoshik. you are welcome to use them if credit is given. if you seek to make a profit, you need to first ask permission to use the photo; then you are obliged to share that profit with yours truly, otherwise karma will catch up with you!